Bowl Full of Cherries (5 page)

“Did you really… y’know? Kick him in the butt in a sonogram?”

“Oh yeah.” Rell smiled. “And I really will take you up into the mountains if you want to go. But hipster twin is right, it is sort of snowing right now.”
Sort of
was an understatement. “So, you remember what I said before? That we have places to go and people to see, except mostly just places to go?”

“Yes,” Crowley agreed.

“This might put a strain on our new friendship and all but we sort of need to go shopping.”

“Shopping?”

“Toy shopping.”

“Oh?”

“Mom and I sort of have an understanding this year that I’m going to do the shopping for her. She gave me cash.”

“You guys don’t buy online?”

“Nope. Mom likes to ‘browse.’”

“But she’s—”

“Not actually going to be there? I know. Oh, and just in case you were wondering if Tyler was right and hanging out with me is like the seventh level of hell? We’re going to Toys “R” Us.”

“Sounds great.” It took everything he had to keep his voice level and disinterested. If he’d been a super good actor, he could have feigned annoyance. The truth was, he was looking forward to spending more time with Rell Lang. Even at Toys “R” Us three days before Christmas.

T
HE
DRIVE
back to town went much faster than the drive out to the station had. The music was great, he had almost an entire day before he had to deal with his brother again, and his temporary roommate was turning out to be a cool sort of guy. Rell liked Crowley’s sense of humor and he asked interesting questions. Not like the last houseguest Tyler brought with him. He couldn’t even remember her name. The “roll her eyes at everything” girl.

Crowley was a little younger than Averell, and a music student. A
real
music student—not like a guy with a guitar living in his mother’s basement. He studied at the conservatory and everything. Crowley played the violin.

“It’s nothing,” Crowley insisted in a way that made Rell think he was being
very
modest. “I… wanted to learn to play the fiddle. I didn’t realize when I was a kid that the fiddle isn’t really an instrument, but how you play that instrument. So I started violin instead. It’s not like I’m talented.”

“You go to the conservatory. You’re talented.”

“
Lots
of people go to Anna K. Duritz,” Crowley said. “I wanted to go to Julliard.” Hot color came up under Crowley’s cheeks, making his freckles stand out against the red. “Little kid dreams, right? I’m not a
bad
violinist. I’m… actually really good.” He practically choked the words out. “But it’s because I’m smart with music and I’ve worked hard for a very long time. There are others who are smart, have worked hard, and have the natural talent. Those are the kids that get into Julliard.”

The song changed. Bobby South started to sing
Wonderful Christmastime
. The album was on shuffle and repeat, but Rell was pretty sure this was the third time the song had played.

“Do you like playing?” Rell asked.

For almost an hour, Rell had been sneaking looks over at Crowley who would—sometimes—look back at him. He didn’t know that they were actually
saying
anything to each other with those exchanges, but they both lingered on them. He looked now and found that the new friend he’d dubbed “Owl” was staring, fixedly, at him. Then, almost imperceptibly, he’d shaken his head. Such a tiny movement, Rell could convince himself his eyes were just tired from driving and he hadn’t actually seen anything at all. A secret.

And suddenly Rell wanted to know more. Wanted to know why someone would go to conservatory when they didn’t like playing the violin.

“What other things do you like?” Rell asked.

And that’s when he went from a fleeting fondness for his brother’s roommate to insta-friendship. Without missing a beat, Crowley Fredericks said, “There’s this videogame—”

Who’d have thunk it? Tyler’s best friend—straight from the hipster’s mouth—was nothing like Tyler at all. His brother thought video games were the most base pleasure and that only “bros” and “the masses” should ever pick up a controller. The only exception was text-based adventure games from the eighties that were the dictionary definition of
impossible
. That was real gaming. That and some weird Swedish D&D-like game that substituted literary references for magic.

“It’s called
Rain Queen
.”

“You play
Rain Queen
?” It was almost too much to hope. He’d met someone cool.
Through
Tyler. He’d met someone cool
through
Tyler.

“It’s my favorite. You like it?”

“Hell yes, I do.” Rell was proud as he explained that he’d been playing long before it went online, back when it was a one-player real-time strategy game. “I even had the cards. Well…
have
them, probably. I think they’re in the garage.”

Oh, the garage. He had actually promised to clean that out, hadn’t
he?

“You….” When Crowley smiled, an earnest dimple formed in one cheek. “Do you really have the TCG? You’re not kidding?”

“I’m pretty sure I do. I’ve got the tabletop game too.”

Every word he spoke made Crowley Fredericks light up even brighter. Rell liked it, liked being able to put the smile on his new friend’s face.

“You want to see my… figs?” For giggles, Rell waggled his eyebrows lasciviously at Crowley, as if he’d asked something dirty.

“Rell Lang, I want nothing more in the world than for you to do me the honor of showing me your figs.”

They burst out laughing together. It felt almost as good as singing along to Kirkpatrick Connection.

“All right, if we survive Toys “R” Us, I will show you more figurines than your fanboy brain can possibly handle.”

“S
O
, S
USSET
is balls weird,” Rell told Crowley as they crawled through an intersection in the downtown area. “First of all, it’s moneyed—all of it, but it’s broken up into ‘Money,’ ‘Money-Money,’ ‘Holy Shit,’ and ‘Rich As Gods.’ Mom lives right between Money and Money-Money, which I don’t say to brag, ’cause there’s nothing to brag about. That’s all Dad’s monthly maintenance checks.

“And you know Susset’s in the valley—except, only most of it. Because of course the ski resort is still considered Susset, and that’s actually quite a ways back and up into the mountains, and then we also spill out of the valley into the commercial district. So pretty much everywhere you go, just like a horror movie, you are in Susset. You can never escape. Downtown’s our historic district, so it’s all art galleries and antique shops and little locally owned restaurants. Farther up into the mountains, you have these insane spas and fancy eateries and the resort and all of that. And… am I boring you?”

“Not even a little,” Crowley promised.

“Cool. And then there’s the spillover, and that’s newly incorporated Susset. I’ve had so many jobs in New Susset, it’s not even funny.”

“What kinds?”

“Frig, I don’t even know if I can remember them all now. I started when I was fifteen and haven’t really stopped.” For the first time in Rell’s twenty-four years, he had to wonder if maybe that wasn’t as cool as he’d always thought it was. A serious student like Crowley, studying at the conservatory… what would he think about Rell’s job-hopping? Rell had always been sort of proud of his record: the day he’d started three different jobs, at three different fast-food places, and by nightfall, he wasn’t employed at any of them. “Uh, tell me about Kansas City.” Topic change, stat.

“I love it,” Crowley said brightly. “It’s home, you know? Every year we go down to The Plaza and watch them turn on the lights.”

“But not this year?”

For a moment, Crowley just blinked those chocolate-brown eyes, like he was somewhere far away, not sitting next to Rell, headed toward the Toys “R” Us.

“You know how it is,” Crowley said vaguely.

Not really. Despite his mother saying she didn’t know if he’d be showing up that year, Rell had never actually missed a Christmas. Sometimes they weren’t in Susset. One year they’d gone to Canada to have Christmas with Katie and her family, and when he was younger, he’d tried the whole “Christmas with Dad” façade. But there’d always been family, in one form or another.

Crowley began to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” the last track on
Christmas Daze
.

As they neared the store, Rell said, “I’m going to let you in on a secret. Don’t tell Tyler, though.”

Crowley laughed quietly. “You’re putting me in a bad spot here.”

“I know, but I’d just never live it down. You know how he thinks everyone and everything is so uncool. I don’t exactly want to giftwrap more ammunition for him.”

“All right,” Crowley agreed hesitantly. “Tell me and I’ll
try
to keep your secret.”

“I… sorta… don’t exactly… y’know….” He drew the sentence out, long and teasing. “Don’t hate Toys “R” Us.”

It was unmistakable, the light that flicked on in Crowley’s face. He tried to tuck it away, tried to play it cool, but it was too late.

“You’ve got a secret too, Owl. Spill.”

“What? No secret.”

“
Spill
, or I’m taking my figs back.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize there would be take-backs!”

“You didn’t yell ‘no take-backs’ so obviously they are fair game. Playground rules, my friend.”

Crowley laughed and shrugged one broad shoulder. “I, also, sorta…. Well, it’s just that when I was a kid, I kind of thought that Toys “R” Us was heaven.”

“Makes sense.”

“No….” He chuckled. “It doesn’t really. But I thought that when you died… you… got to go to Toys “R” Us and play with the PlayStations.” Once Crowley began to talk, the words flowed freely, spilling from his mouth. “So me and my sister, we’d get our allowance, and literally
run
down the aisles. Like this race, every time to find a certain toy. Except we’d never agree beforehand what the toy was—and then she’d grab something and say ‘I got it!’ and I’d argue with her and….” He chuckled, the rest of the story probably playing out in his head. “I should call Alice and see if she remembers the bin of giant bouncy balls.”

“Look, I know we only just met and this is super forward,” Rell said. “But you and I should definitely bounce on some bouncy balls.”

“They’ll throw us out.”

“Not if they can’t catch us,” Rell said.

When they got to the towering store, the parking lot was full to the far reaches, so that they had to park in one of the very last spots. The snow had stopped falling, but the ground was still slick.

Rell grabbed a slushy shopping cart from out of the return bin. Its wheels were practically frozen, and the carpet of snow didn’t help things.

“Get in and I’ll push you,” Rell said, shoving the mesh cart at Crowley and waggling it so that it made patterns in the snow.

“I’d get stuck in there,” Crowley said logically. “But if you get in there, I’ll push you.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” Rell scrambled up and into the mesh basket. “Baby Jesus that’s cold!”

Crowley had quietly pulled out his cell phone, snapping a picture of Rell before tucking it away.

“Oh! Send that to my brother. Could you imagine if Tyler were here?” Rell asked, his legs going at odd angles out of the basket. Crowley had been worried about getting stuck, and maybe Rell should have worried a little more too. But as the cart began to move, Crowley carefully navigating the parking lot, he forgot to worry. It was way too much fun. “‘This is a travesty, sirs. People are going to see
me,
Tyler Lang, out at a Big Box Store, supporting consumerism! It’s bad enough we have to perpetuate the myth of Santa Claus, but—’”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve had this exact conversation with Tyler. Though you might not want to say ‘perpetuating the myth,’ y’know, around the kids.”

“That’s Tyler talking. I, on the other hand, totally believe. I saw the sneaky bastard one year.”

“Santa?”

“Hecks, yeah.”

Of course Rell
knew
about the age-old con job of parents, kids, and Santa. But his seventh Christmas morning, he’d crept downstairs and seen—with his totally awake and not dreaming eyes—a man putting presents under the tree. And it wasn’t his father, because he was in Cabo with his then-girlfriend, and it wasn’t his mother, because she’d woken up, startled when he ran to her room. She told him he was dreaming, which seemed dumb, since at that point she had still been “perpetuating the myth.” Rell had always wondered about that.

“Every time Tyler is forced to go out to a non-mom-and-pop store and I take a picture, I just tell him that if anyone happens to see the—
gasp—
corporate logo in the background, he can tell everyone how ironic he’s being.”

“You do that too?”

Rell laughed.

“Your picture turned out nice. Look?” Crowley leaned forward, over the handle of the cart, holding the phone out for Rell to see. He saw his own goofy expression and body pretzelled into the basket, but that was only for a moment. Because suddenly Rell wasn’t really seeing anything. Instead, he was very aware of how close Crowley was to his face, the arm that held the phone pressed into his shoulder, Crowley’s cheek near-but-not-touching Rell’s cheek, and the rich smell of his peppermint shampoo. He could feel the heat from Crowley’s face, and when he moved, one of Crowley’s long blond curls, sun-streaked, brushed against Rell, sending a chill right down his spine. He didn’t mean to—he just reacted, jerking forward, so that his head knocked Crowley’s phone.